My hands tighten on the steering wheel. He's here. I couldn't leave until after lunch—a meeting I couldn't cancel without raising questions, not when I'd already cleared the rest of the week. Jamie could have been here for hours, the growing heat in his blood. He’ll have had long enough to walk around and really look into the cupboard. Long enough to see my childhood spread across the walls in faded photographs.
I didn’t plan to take him somewhere so personal but we won’t be disturbed here. It was the most practical solution.
I pull in beside his car and kill the engine, but I don't get out immediately. The trunk is full of groceries and supplies. I spent an embarrassing amount of time at the store this morning, googling what omegas need during heat on my phone while standing in the vitamin aisle, second-guessing every choice. Protein bars or protein shakes? Electrolyte drinks or coconut water? The internet had opinions. Many, many opinions.
I don't even know what Jamie likes to eat.
I don't know anything about Jamie, really. Not how he takes his coffee or what music he listens to or whether he sleeps on his back or his stomach. I know how he sounds when he comes. I know the exact pitch of his voice when he's close to theedge. I know what his face looks like when pleasure wipes away everything else.
But I don't knowhim.
I get out of the car.
The air is cold and clean, sharp in my lungs after the recycled air of the drive. Smoke isn't rising from the chimney yet. Jamie either didn't know how to start the fire or didn't want to presume.
I grab two of the grocery bags from the trunk and head for the door. It's unlocked, which I expected. I told him where to find the spare key.
The door swings open, and I see him immediately.
Jamie is in the kitchen area, his back to me, opening and closing cabinets with the movements of someone unfamiliar with a space and searching for something.
He's wearing jeans and a soft-looking sweater, and even from across the room, I catch his scent of honey and citrus, richer than usual: the heat building in his system.
My body responds before my brain catches up. The pull is immediate, visceral, and I have to fight the urge to cross the room and press my face against the curve of his neck.
Jamie turns at the sound of the door.
We stare at each other.
"Hello," I say.
The word sounds absurd. Too formal. Like we're meeting at a networking event instead of a remote cabin where I'm about to spend the next week fucking him through his heat. But it's the only word that comes out.
"Hi." His voice is equally stilted.
Silence stretches between us, thick and uncomfortable. This is the first time we've faced each other without immediately colliding. In the hotels, there was no preamble. We showed up, we fucked, we left. Simple. Wordless. Nothing like this.
I cross to the kitchen counter and set down the grocery bags, just to have something to do with my hands. "What were you looking for?"
"Coffee pot."
Coffee pot. He drinks coffee. I file this information away like it's valuable intelligence, which is ridiculous. Half the country drinks coffee.
"Cabinet above the stove," I say. "There's a French press too, if you prefer."
"The pot's fine."
More silence.
I start unpacking the groceries, mostly to fill the awkward void. I'm hyperaware of Jamie watching me, standing a few feet away with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s made no effort to grab the coffee pot. The defensive posture makes something in my chest tighten.
"I brought food," I say, obviously. The bags are right there. "Simple things. Healthy." I pull out eggs, bread, cheese, chicken breasts, broccoli, spinach, several containers of premade soup from the fancy deli near my apartment and electrolyte drinks which I wave at him. "The internet said those were important for heats."
"You googled what to buy for an omega in heat?"
My neck heats. I focus very intently on arranging the soup containers in the refrigerator. "I wanted to be prepared."
Jamie's expression is unreadable when I glance at him. "That's... thoughtful."
